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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677296">A Heartless Instinct</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_of_Wolves/pseuds/Rose_of_Wolves'>Rose_of_Wolves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>How to Feel [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A heartless will do what heartless’ do, Angst, But Anti Form Sora is not evil, Hurt Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Riku kind of freaks out because of it, Sora sort of steals Riku’s heart, Wait what do you even call the Dark Sora thing anyway?, cause it’s Riku duh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:41:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,946</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_of_Wolves/pseuds/Rose_of_Wolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When overwhelmed by Heartless, Sora attempts to activate a Drive Form by using an injured Riku as the catalyst. </p><p>****</p><p>Still, even Sora knew that what he was considering was a really bad idea. To even dare and try borrowing power from someone who was injured and weakened himself… but there was no more time to think about that. Now was the time to either act, or else succumb to the darkness.</p><p>Put like that and well, what was there left to lose?</p><p><em>‘I’ll apologize to Riku later.’</em> He promised, for once they’ve actually survived this nightmare.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anti Form Sora &amp; Riku (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>How to Feel [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805164</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Heartless Instinct</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, I was always interested in the nature of the Heartless, and why exactly they existed in the first place. Generic bad guys are all well and good to button mash to death in a game, but ‘they’re evil because they’re evil’ makes for a rather boring backstory, am I right? Also, there’s this little, tiny part in the first game, where Sora literally turned into a Heartless! Then the sequel comes out, and Sora has an Anti-Form that he turns into at complete random! Then the KH3 comes out and that introduces RAGE MODE! And the games NEVER draw attention to this! It’s just something that happens but does literally nothing to influence the plot at ALL!! No one even casually mentions it, that Sora just sort of turns into a human/heartless thing every so often. Like, really? So come on, I can’t be the only one intrigued here, and if they won’t explain it in game, then that’s what fanfiction is for right?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quiet, empty, and silent. A world that’s been abandoned, a ghost town of cobblestone pavement, streetlights, and flickering neon billboards illuminate the moonless night. A desperate scream pierced the distant air, drawing closer at an alarming rate, and landing with a horrific crash of grey dust, debris, and stone. It scraped and scratched the body of a young, silver-haired boy skidding painfully across the unrelenting ground.<br/>
</p><p>“Riku!!!”<br/>
</p><p> The other boy, the one with brown hair, untamed and spiked, screamed in fear for his friend. He rushed from between an alleyway and skid to a stop beside his fallen companion.<br/>
</p><p>“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” A blatant lie, the boy was obviously anything but fine. Blood was gushing from his head, staining the silver strands crimson, and his arm bent at a strange angle. He was panting from the sheer pain of it, his voice straining for air. Sora however, took the words at face value, turning back around and brandishing his weapon.<br/>
</p><p> Had he a choice, he would’ve forced Riku to safety, but the obvious injuries could not be indulged. The two child-soldiers could not afford the luxury, for the hoard of inky, black-shadowed wraiths, would not relent their attack simply because one of their prey was injured. No, their attack would only become even more ferocious for it.<br/>
</p><p> They were like a swarm of locus, vile little insects with yellowed luminescent bug-eyes and broken antennae. The darklings crouched low to the ground, on bodies that couldn’t decide if they were meant to walk on two legs, or crawl like the vermin they were on four. They clicked and warbled and slunk in the lightless shadows of the plaza, surrounding the two boys with the ease only ever found in cursed creatures.<br/>
</p><p> For a moment there was a tense stalemate, the Heartless poised to attack, and the Keyblade Wielder ready to defend his fallen friend. Then, like a taught wire snapping, both forces lunged. The phantoms of darkness clawed, bit, and screeched. The human teenager slashed, bashed, and screamed.<br/>
</p><p> The injured Riku however, who lay incapacitated and bleeding on the ground, grit his teeth against the pain and dragged himself away on one arm. The mindless shadows were, for the moment, taking greater interest in the one frantically whacking at them with his blade, than of the boy crawling to refuge, but that wouldn’t last for long. He couldn’t afford to just lounge around in the open. Unfortunately though, once he got to the closest of the buildings, his shaking strength gave out, slumping him against the brick wall.<br/>
</p><p> Inwardly he cursed, hissing through his teeth and guilt and failure. He hated leaving Sora to fight on his own. The Heartless were weak little curs, but they outnumbered the two of them a hundred to one, likely more, a lot more. Never good odds regardless, and Sora was exhausted on top of it.<br/>
</p><p> Hurriedly, the injured boy dug into his pockets. He was long since out of restorative potions, but what else could he do? He was too drained to cast any healing magics, and the buggers just kept on coming from out of nowhere. Fumbling the empty vials, Riku winced as one of the glasses crashed and shattered on the pavement.<br/>
</p><p> Sora was slowing down, the adrenaline rush fading all to quickly now. He was panting like a dog, his keyblade feeling to weigh a ton and only getting heavier. Clearly, he was on his last leg, and that leg was about to give out from under him. Yet if he did, both he and Riku would fall to the Heartless swarm, and he could <em>not</em> let that happen!<br/>
</p><p> But <em>what</em> could he <em>do!?</em><br/>
</p><p> He hadn’t any options left to him! Donald and Goofy, they weren’t there to stand beside him with this! Sure he could probably still try to harness some sort of strength on his own, and pray to the Light that it’d actually help. Yet attempting such a summoning by himself, when he’s only still standing on the fumes of sheer stubbornness alone, he wasn’t stupid enough to think it’d actually work.<br/>
</p><p><em>‘There is someone with me though.’</em> The brunette thought, wide cobalt-blue eyes briefly shifting over to the edge of his vision, where a certain silver-haired someone lay <em>‘Riku’s here.’</em><br/>
</p><p> His childhood friend though, had no idea of Sora’s inner thoughts, only that they’d officially reached the point of desperation. Riku’s eyes surveyed the battlefield anxiously, searching for some way, any way, to help. He could barely keep his sight from fading, the encroaching blackness already blurring the edge of his vision, but the the will to fight was there, and still strong.<br/>
</p><p> Still, even Sora knew that what he was considering was a really bad idea. To even dare and try borrowing power from someone who was injured and weakened himself… but there was no more time to think about that. Now was the time to either act, or else succumb to the darkness.<br/>
</p><p> Put like that and well, what was there left to lose?<br/>
</p><p><em>‘I’ll apologize to Riku later.’</em> He promised, for once they’ve actually survived this nightmare.<br/>
</p><p> So with one last burst of will and a swift arching swing of his weapon, Sora flung back the swarm of devils. It allowed him a bare half-moment of freedom before they would rush him again, so the boy griped his weapon with both hands and pierced the keyblade skyward.<br/>
</p><p>“GIVE ME STRENGTH!!!” He screamed, putting every last fading ounce of scraped-together power he had into the spell. It was a desperate plea, and he knew that if it didn’t work... But it <em>had</em> to work.<br/>
</p><p>A searing heat burst from within him, as the magic took affect and released all his remaining light in one swift blast. He was used to the feeling though. He, Donald, and Goofy would do this all the time. He knew what to expect.<br/>
</p><p> The world around slowed down, way, way down to near stillness. The Heartless, Riku, Sora, all of it in the slowest of motion as the caster’s inner light weaved outward through the air in all directions. Around, over, and under, it searched for familiar energies, companions it knew so well. The one that was gentle and clever, a Defender; the other who was short-tempered and brave, a Protector; those two had been by its side, before and always, but they weren’t there now. What this Light found instead was an exhausted soul, loyal and daring and stubborn, frightened and so young, this companion was still learning of itself.<br/>
</p><p> Yet this Light knew this soul! It’s of a cherished friend, the one who dreamed of freedom and power and traveling the other worlds, the shining Silver Child who belonged to no darkness but his own. A darkness that this Light drew itself ever so much closer to, so, so excited, because every brightness longs to be near their beloved shadows, forever and always.<br/>
</p><p> Eagerly did it call out to the Silver Child, weaving a subtle trilling that rang within his ears, gently enticing a hidden power he so cautiously guards away. For Riku’s was not the trusting soul that Sora’s was, and he wasn’t used to his powers being summoned. Cyan eyes were wary of this Light’s siren song dancing before him, coaxing the hidden truth of his nature to the surface so that they might merge, and together become strong.<br/>
</p><p> So when this Light finally felt the stirring from deep within the Silver Child, it shrilled in joy, and reached out.<br/>
</p><p> Riku’s every muscle tensed as the light unexpectedly touched him, a chilling cold rushing through the blood of his veins. A pounding and a beat, it throbbed in his head as a part of himself that he’d thought tightly locked away, suddenly flooded itself to the surface. A strangled gasp as he clenched his teeth against the feeling, he’d just enough sense to attempt to stop it—to try and deny it—but it was as if a dam had broken.<br/>
</p><p> It was his inner Darkness that answered the call of the Light.<br/>
</p><p> Abruptly, an inky-shadowed vapor drained away from within the gasping boy, pooling around him in a way that felt like he’d just lost all the blood in his body. Riku slumped against the wall, pale and horrified as he watched it infect Sora’s light, morphing the illuminating brightness into utter blackness.<br/>
</p><p> Then, all at once, the contaminated spell retreated straight back into the caster, leaving Riku breathless, and Sora suddenly wreathing. The brunette gripped his chest in pain as a dark bog burst forth from within him, forcing itself from between his clenched fingers and circling all around him. Riku watched as his friend’s cobalt-blue eyes widened in fear, the spell completely out of control, before the pitch-black smoke then engulfed him entirely.<br/>
</p><p> Sora couldn’t breathe! The blackness entered through his nose, his mouth, the very pores of his skin. He curled in on himself as his flesh burned black, felt the unbearable heat penetrating his core, and leaving everything else ice-cold. An awful pain split through his mind, fracturing it into panic!<br/>
</p><p> What was going on? This wasn’t supposed to happen. <em>This wasn’t supposed to happen!</em><br/>
</p><p>Riku couldn’t cover his ears right with his busted arm, but he still tried anyway. The sounds Sora was making! They were suffered screeches that turned into something that couldn’t possibly be human! Squeezing his eyes shut did nothing to block it out, so he forced them to stay open, even just barely a crack, watching.<br/>
</p><p> Finally, after an agonizing few moments, the dark orb encasing his tortured friend shattered into hundreds of pieces, then the pieces shattered into pieces and disappeared entirely. As for what remained, it could only be described as a living nightmare.<br/>
</p><p>A creature, drenched in an inky skin of blackness, crouched itself in the place of what had once been Sora. Tendril whiffs of darkness trailed the wake of its every twitchy movement, and dark hands narrowed into claws, slowly flexing as it poised to strike. It jerkily glared at everything, every surrounding shadow, a pair of round, incandescent, yellow-gold eyes the only remaining proof of its swallowed brightness.<br/>
</p><p>“S-Sor—” Riku lost his remaining breath in shock, not having even realized he had stopped breathing. Then he gasped. “…Sora…?”<br/>
</p><p><em>No.</em> That couldn’t be right, it wasn’t possible. That… that <em>thing</em>, it couldn’t be Sora. Sora was,… he… he was <em>Sora</em>! He was brightness, and optimism, and ridiculousness. A lazy goofball who always had that stupid grin on his face. He’s goodness and kindness incarnate, and he was… he was…<br/>
</p><p>He was a Heartless?!<br/>
</p><p>Riku suddenly felt sick. He watched as the thing that’d been his friend not even a minute ago, warbled a strange hissing noise, and then viciously attacked the nearest shadow. Volatile fingers and teeth ripped the darklings apart, and Riku reflexively jerked up his good arm to cover his mouth as he doubled over. He dry heaved over the cold stone pavement as a horrid realization dawned on him.<br/>
</p><p>Sora… had <em>always</em> been a heartless!<br/>
</p><p>This whole time! It wasn’t that his friend had suddenly turned into a Heartless! No, this was so much worse, so, so much worse. Sora, his very best and closest friend, he had already <em>been</em> a Heartless.<br/>
</p><p>…and it was all his fault…<br/>
</p><p>He hadn’t forgotten. Oh no, Riku remembered that day in vivid, traumatic, gruesome detail. How could he not? It was the thing that still haunted his waking nightmares. The vision of Sora, in order to save one of his closest of friends, plunging the Key of People’s Hearts into his own chest. His body had faded away, slipping from between Kairi’s fingers as she cried, and Donald screaming his desperate begs for him to <em>come back!</em> It was back then, that Sora’s unprotected heart had been engulfed by his own inner darkness.<br/>
</p><p>That day, Sora had become one of the very same creatures that plagued the worlds. It had been <em>then</em>, that Sora became a Heartless.<br/>
</p><p>Riku lurched again in a heaving jerk, his chest tightening and eyes burning. This was all his fault!<br/>
</p><p>He’d been the one that drove Sora to such extremes in the first place! Riku had all but literally just stepped aside and allowed—practically asked, begged even—the foreign darkness to control him, to manipulate and use him to hurt both himself and his own friends, and now it was his best friend that was still suffering for it! He was such a fool, a total, and complete idiot! They had both wanted the same thing! Yet instead of trusting Sora, he… he had… like an idiot he…<br/>
</p><p>Riku clenched his eyes, grit his teeth, unable to even bring words to his thoughts anymore. Truth of the matter was, he’d been stupid. Confiding in Maleficent, opening himself up to the darkness and to Ansem, fighting his friends …not realizing that it’d be Sora to suffer the repercussions!<br/>
</p><p>How could he not have realized?! Never even once had he pondered the consequences of what had happened?!<br/>
</p><p>Because Sora, by some miracle because <em>Sora’s just like that,</em> he had retained his brilliant light, and thanks in part to Kairi’s power as a Princess of Heart, he somehow manifested back into his original form. Yet, looking at him now…<br/>
</p><p>Sora, at his very core, was still a Heartless.<br/>
</p><p>Riku slammed his fist into the stone ground, his skin cutting open, the wounds bleeding crimson. His cyan-teal eyes pinched shut, flinching away and hiding behind his overgrown silver bangs. The foolish young boy couldn’t accept what he could now understand clear as day. He could hardly stand to watch, his grief blurring his vision with unshed tears, as the Sora-Heartless-<em>thing</em> ruthlessly tore asunder its own kin.<br/>
</p><p>Lightning fast and merciless, it’s quickness made it an indistinguishable blur in the dark, losing its solidity from within the deep shadows even as it ripped its prey apart. The countless little devils fled in a frenzy from the demon that was slaughtering them. Riku had once absently wondered if such creatures could even feel emotions. Now, listening to a terrorized cacophony of earsplitting shrieks of shadows, he knew for a fact that they could at least feel fear.<br/>
</p><p>What had to be the most disturbing though, was that Riku could still identify that demonic thing as Sora. More so than the shadow-wisp silhouette of spiked hair and baggy clothes, it was the single-minded proficiency as claws, fangs, and dark magic ripped through its enemies. Better than perhaps anyone else, Riku knew just how dangerous the boy could become in a fight. Naive, foolish, empathetic and gullible, he would always, always, spare his friends, even if… they didn’t deserved it. However, no such mercy existed for his enemies. He’ll strike them down, and in the end, when all is said and done, he’ll make sure they stay down.<br/>
</p><p>In a matter of minutes, the seemingly unending hoard had thinned out, the last specks of them dissipating at the claws of this… <em>Anti</em>-Sora. Unfortunately, with fewer enemies it became unfocused and restless, debating whether to pursue, hunt down whatever vile nest the shadows had spawned from and annihilate every last one of them.<br/>
</p><p>Secretly, and as much as he hated such thoughts, Riku hoped Sora would do just that. He simply couldn’t help it. He did not want this dark neo-shadowed version of his friend anywhere near himself.<br/>
</p><p>‘<em>Go Away</em>.’ His mind pleaded. ‘<em>Just Leave!</em>’<br/>
</p><p>Don’t notice the Heart of the foolish injured boy hiding in the light of the street-lamps.<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Sora lurched forward, an obvious intent to chase down its escaping prey, and Riku let out a slow breath of relief. However, the feeling didn’t last long, his body freezing—petrified—when the Heartless haltingly jerked itself back. It was as if something <em>else</em>… had suddenly caught its attention. Something that was far, far more enticing to it than the weakling shadows of the dark.<br/>
</p><p>Riku felt his breath go shallow, his eyes dilating wide. He broke into cold sweat and could hear his blood pulsing in his ears as the demon slowly begin scenting the air.<br/>
</p><p>‘<em>Please, please, please</em>,’ He silently begged, prayed for his shadowed friend to just keep his back turned, but his heartbeat thrummed in his head, and it was so <em>loud</em>!<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Form remained still, cautiously inspecting its surroundings. The whole city reeked of the darklings, their corruption a thick miasma in the air. They were dangerous, infected, evil, and not what darknesses were meant to be. <em>To tear them apart</em>, it desired! Claw deep and rip out their thieved Hearts that they had no rights to.<br/>
</p><p>Yet, there were whiffs of something else, too. Nearby, very close, something of will and memories, of hurt and bonds, and much, much more important than the weak-false-evil darklings.<br/>
</p><p>A Heart. A living, and whole Heart, in such a place as this? Where the shadows were corrupted, and the darkness poisoned?<br/>
</p><p>Abruptly, the Heartless snapped its head around. Wide piercing golden eyes illuminated, fixated, on a silver-haired human male. A boy who was young, hurt, helpless. Who’s sharp cyan eyes widened in terror, body stiffening at its gaze. The child pushed himself back, flush against the wall, to get away, to hide, but the stone did not yield to him.<br/>
</p><p>The fear, the hurt, the Heartless sensed this, and felt the boy’s inner darkness stir in response, to protect the vulnerable Heart within. Alarmed, it clacked a warbling sound, and swayed with a twitchy disquiet, jerking every which way, mistrustful of the night’s shadows. The darkness of this world had already been poisoned, and if the silver-haired boy wasn’t careful, it would infect this Heart’s darkness as well.<br/>
</p><p>Unfortunately, Riku couldn’t reign control of his ever-mounting fear, nor how it spurred his own inner darkness’ reaction to it. His careful walls that held it back had been already bashed open, and a black aura began seeping out of his very skin, forming a thick fiery cloak tightly around him. Seeing this, of course, only terrified Riku even more.<br/>
</p><p>He knew of what hides in the dark. He didn’t want to fall to it! Not again. <em>Not again!</em><br/>
</p><p>Beyond rational reasoning, and flailing in panicked desperation, the boy attempted to bring forth his Keyblade. He wrenched his arm up to defend himself, and grit his teeth against a seething pain that he ignored.<br/>
</p><p>Instantly did his blade answer its master’s call, flashing into existence with an electric surge of bright darkness. The Anti-Sora flinched away from it, naturally wary of the sudden appearance of a weapon, and when Riku saw that… saw how Sora had <em>feared</em>… his mind stalled. The key in his grasp suddenly dissipated back into dark smoke, and for a moment, he could only blankly stare at its absence.<br/>
</p><p>A Keyblade’s magic— responds to the strength of one’s Heart, and Riku didn’t have the strength of heart to fight Sora. Not again. Not even back then. Slumping back, it was like the fear drained away, refilled instead with grief and regret. Resigned, his empty hand dropped back to the cold ground, the last of his strength gone.<br/>
</p><p>Anti-Sora straitened at this, tilting its head. The darkness Of its skin swayed and the shadows curled, before it suddenly rushed toward the injured Keyblade Wielder. It was a strange, tumbling gait, as though its body didn’t know its own shape. Probably it thought it were something else, something smaller and closer to the ground maybe, with broken antenna on its head. Regardless, the Heartless-creature made its way over, eager and worried.<br/>
</p><p>Closer, very close it came. Dark wisps twitched and twirled, licking the air above the Silver Boy, and tasting a perpetual sunrise from his protective cloak of darkness. A scent of fading shadow and encroaching light, a good scent.<br/>
</p><p>A good power as well, it radiated from within this Heart. To have this power meant this Heart was strong, unwavering, determined. A strong Heart to make both a strong darkness, and an even stronger light. One that’s hard to corrupt.<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Form shrilled curiously, moving nearer, but also carefully. The Silver Boy may have given permission to approach, but it knows how hurt and fear can make one strike out, attack, flee. It came close, reaching out with curled fingers, but did not yet touch.<br/>
</p><p>It knew this Heart. With such a strong power, a good light, and deep darkness. This is a Precious Heart! It <em>cherishes</em> this Heart. It can’t believe this Heart’s here!<br/>
</p><p>The trailing smoke of the Heartless’ black skin curled in time with its excited clicks and warbles. It restrained the elation as best it could, not wanting to alarm the Silver Boy, but it just couldn’t quite contain itself. How it had yearned for this Heart, had searched for so, so long!<br/>
</p><p>The Heart of Dawn was here! Finally, after all this time!<br/>
</p><p>Yet, Heart of Dawn was hurt, was scared, was broken. Why had this Heart come here? To this world overrun with lurking evils, it wasn’t safe. If this Heart wasn’t careful, the darklings would try to steel it away again.<br/>
</p><p>Abruptly, the Anti-Sora crouched over the Silver Boy, and released a raspy hiss that snarled at the surrounding darks that were no longer there.  It’d beaten them away, tor them apart! They would not have Heart of Dawn! It’d <em>kill</em> them first!<br/>
</p><p>“Sora? …What’s wrong?”<br/>
</p><p>Forcibly, it subdued its growl, knowing the Silver Boy was frightened, but it couldn’t bring itself to relax. It had to protect. The Heart of Dawn, it drew strength from both the light and the dark, it always had. Harm should never have come from either.<br/>
</p><p>How dare those darklings ever even tried! How dare that they had once succeeded! It should destroy them, every last one of those weak-vile little imps! Yet the Silver Boy was broken though, couldn’t defend his Heart of Dawn by himself. So it must stay by this Heart, or else bring this Heart along with it.<br/>
</p><p>Anti-Sora suddenly stopped its growling, pondering that stray thought that had just crossed its mind. Slowly, the looming Heartless drew its gaze back to the one laying helpless beneath it. At its attention, the Silver Boy tensed, and an unease grew in his eyes.<br/>
</p><p>Still, with a soft lick of blackness, and a subtle craving from deep within itself, the Heartless cautiously regarded its own instincts.<br/>
</p><p><em>To bring this Heart with it.</em><br/>
</p><p>…Yes... that’s what, it should do.<br/>
</p><p>Then, it leaned even closer, and Riku’s breath picked up as the foreboding darkness flooded his senses, a chill in his blood, a heat on his flesh, a thick scent of ozone and dampness and heavy rain.<br/>
</p><p>‘<em>So close, too close!</em>’ The whisking tendrils of shadow brushed against his paled skin, freezing cold, burning hot. His heart was throbbing beneath his skin—too fast—the very same pulse that the Anti-Sora was now reaching for.<br/>
</p><p>“I’m not afraid of the dark.” He huffed aloud, a pitiful denial as he stared into the blank eyes of what used to be his closest friend. “I’m not afraid of the dark. I-I’m not…”<br/>
</p><p><em>I’m not afraid of Sora.</em><br/>
</p><p>Wide, vacant, unnatural orbs of damning luminescent gold, those were the shallow depths of what stared back at him, unrecognizing, unfeeling, and drawing ever closer.<br/>
</p><p><em>I’m not afraid of Sora!</em><br/>
</p><p>Fingers of tendrilled-black, slowly traveled to the center of his beating pulse-point, to where all blood and all life and all feeling flowed.<br/>
</p><p><em>I am not afraid…</em><br/>
</p><p>It hovered there, right over the left of his chest, preparing itself to steel something vital from him.<br/>
</p><p><em>I’m… not…</em><br/>
</p><p>He was shivering.<br/>
</p><p><em>I… I’m going to die—!</em><br/>
</p><p>Riku gasped, flinging his uninjured hand to latch it desperately onto the arm of a creature that was about to dig out his Heart! He couldn’t take it! Looking into the unseeing eyes of what Was supposed to be Sora, the monster that became of his best friend, this was a fate worse than death! It terrified him!<br/>
</p><p>Because it was the void, unblinking eyes of a Heartless that gazed back at him. It felt his fingers dig into its shadowed arm, slowly squishing themselves into the inky blackness. Yet, surprisingly, it decided to remain still, waiting.<br/>
</p><p>Very, very slowly, Riku calmed down. His body just didn’t have the energy to sustain panic for very long, and so his heart-rate eventually slowed. His breath evened out. His body went limp. When had he clenched his eyes closed? Did his mind just, kind of shorted-out for a moment? Blearily, cyan-ringed eyes forced themselves back open.<br/>
</p><p>To find the Anti-Form crouched a hair’s-breath away from his nose.<br/>
</p><p>“Sora!” Riku jerked back, startled, but the humanoid Heartless was faster. In less than a blink, it had whipped its hand around and cushioned the otherwise nasty bash his head would’ve met with the brick wall.<br/>
</p><p>Riku froze, shocked and a bit dazed while listening to the scolding clicks of his shadowed friend. Had Sora just, kept him from getting hurt? Riku shook himself, wondering if he actually did have a concussion because… wouldn’t that mean…?<br/>
</p><p>The sudden wave of relief was unexpected, and intense. It rushed him like a tidal wave and he had to force the tears back from overwhelming him. Because he’d just realized.<br/>
</p><p>Even though Sora was a Heartless, and would do what it was that Heartless do, he was also still just <em>Sora</em>. And Sora, even when enshrouded by darkness and instinct, he had never been, nor will he ever be, a creature of evil or ill intent.<br/>
</p><p>Riku couldn’t understand why this revelation was so profound for him. It didn’t change anything, didn’t change the Anti-Form’s wanting desire to consume his Heart. Yet, if he were honest, he was too relieved to care. All that mattered was the fact that <em>any</em> Sora, was still just Sora!<br/>
</p><p>And he wasn’t afraid of Sora.<br/>
</p><p> He still didn’t trust what was going to happen next, but he wasn’t so afraid anymore.<br/>
</p><p> A sobbed breath escaped him, but only one. Riku simply refused to break down crying, and definitely not in front of his lazy goofball of a friend! That’d just be stupid embarrassing. He’d never live it down. So, for a long, tense few moments, he painfully held his breath till the hysteric fit passed. Only then did Riku finally, finally, relax. Slowly, he released his death-grip upon his friend-turned-Heartless, and let let his arm go lax.<br/>
</p><p> The Anti-Form chittered, with a bite of fond exasperation. It wished the Silver Boy weren’t always, always worrying. Heart of Dawn will be fine! Soon, it’ll be tucked away into the deepest reaches of its inner darkness, welcomed within its depths, and be safe there. Anti-Sora will protect it, it knows how, the same way it protects all the others that had come to it.<br/>
</p><p>It remembers, from back before. Before light, before dark, when there was just a Brand-New Heart, and it had known even then. When it first met the Fractured Heart, lost and pained, reaching out for a darkness that’d been taken from it, there was born an instinct, a touch, and the Brand-New Heart became a Heart-Reconnect, and the Fractured Heart settled into a deep sleep within it for a very, very long time, and sleeps soundly still. Then the Hearts of No-Place came to be; the Heart of Twilight, and from it; the Heart of Forgotten Memories. They were stolen fragments from Heart-Reconnect that the evil darknesses had tried to corrupt, but instead they grew into their own. They inevitably returned however, for in the end, they could not survive on their own. Not yet anyway.<br/>
</p><p>Deep, deep down, it could feel them though, pulsing their soft lights. They gently stir the Heartless’ instinct from within, into a growing and most pleasant hunger. It made the Anti-Sora purr in delight. Soon, so very soon, the Heart of Dawn will safely hum alongside them.<br/>
</p><p>Gold eyes regarded the Silver Boy, so patiently waiting for it, and the Heartless allowed its instincts to guide it. A gentle reassuring growl, and black inked hands against the Silver Boy’s heartbeat, and then, the dark tendrils sunk in.<br/>
</p><p>Riku gasped, tensing up once more as he felt Anti-Sora’s claws begin to seep into his skin. His friend warbled calmly at him, soothingly, before the shadowed being gently pulsed, and it was like a drug to Riku’s own enshrouding darkness. His mind unfocused, his body relaxed, and the encroaching hands slipped even deeper inside him.<br/>
</p><p>Still, Riku groaned and squirmed from the strange intrusion, the Heartless steadily coaxing him into allowing more and more of its foreign darkness in. Every time he’d tense up, it’d pulse again, and again, till he’d go limp and lax and let the claws in his chest dig just that little further in. Rinse and repeat it went, and it felt weird, and strange. The dark had always been forceful, before. It intruded, violated. Mind, will, heart, whether he opened himself for it or not. This however, this patience, it was…<br/>
</p><p>Riku writhed as he felt his own hidden darkness rise up and flare. He gripped onto Sora even as his hands sunk into its blacked skin. Their shadows were intermixing, his own darkness now drawing in and guiding the Heartless to its goal within, and the boy couldn’t even brace himself for it.<br/>
</p><p>He tried to stay calm, keeping his panting breaths as even as he could manage with the confusing darkness gradually digging itself deeper into him. Pressed so close against him now, he could feel Anti-Sora’s hungry growling vibrate through his bones, and despite himself, fear began to pump through his veins anew.<br/>
</p><p>Course by now, he couldn’t stop what was about to happen even if he tried, and with an alarmed grunt, he felt shadowed fingers curl around their forbidden prize.<br/>
</p><p>Riku’s eyes constricted to pinpricks as his deepest, most secret part of his being was latched on to. Darkness had never felt like this! He was left breathless, and freezing from his core as the Heartless carefully began extracting its captured treasure.<br/>
</p><p>“—S-Sora—”<br/>
</p><p>Riku clenched his eyes closed, buried his nose in the scent of midnight and encroaching island storms. Sora’s darkness enshrouded and gripped him tightly in return, a comfort he desperately needed, as his Heart was stolen from him.<br/>
</p><p>Riku flinched as a bright light abruptly pierced through his eyelids, though his mind then became suddenly and extremely lightheaded. Both freezing darkness and burning light flooded to fill his now hollow core, the shock of it leaving the boy completely numb to everything.<br/>
</p><p>Blearily, he tried to focus, but the world was spinning around him. Nothing was staying still anymore, not the buildings, not the ground, and especially not the dark Sora crouched in front of him. The darkness kept distorting, kept blurring, went back into focus, and then… wait, what?<br/>
</p><p><em>What was, that?</em><br/>
</p><p>Cradled within the Anti-Form’s tendril-wisp hands, lay a gorgeous sphere of light, smooth and warm and bright. Riku stared in awe. He could see the edges of his darkness still curled around the shining sphere, as though belonging there, to caress and edge into its cracks. Was that… his Heart? But, it was all still… so much brighter than he thought it’d be.<br/>
</p><p>Anti-Sora was cooing at the fragile Heart nestled within its hands. A gentle, clawed finger stroked the unseen scars beneath, oh so careful. Yet it would take only a single careless twitch, and Riku would fade away. Not into light, or the dark, but into absolutely nothing at all.<br/>
</p><p>Riku unconsciously clenched his hand, his knuckles paling white at the pressure even as he continued to gaze wide-eyed at his own Heart. The nails of his fingertips drew blood, but the boy didn’t even notice anymore. He didn’t feel the sting of air in his open cuts, the pain of fractured bones in his arm, or the feel of his rapid pulse from right beneath his skin. He didn’t feel anything.<br/>
</p><p>Instead he just watched, as Anti-Sora brought his Heart to itself, and gave cautious, tentative licks to it, like a large black cat grooming it’s paw. The shadowed wisps of its tongue flowed into the many minuscule crevasses and smoothnesses of the orb, causing the rightful owner to shudder at strange, phantom sensations his body didn’t actually feel.<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Form tilted its head from its inspection of the orb, having tasted a strange darkness in it, one that it undoubtedly knew belonged to Heart of Dawn, yet contrarily, it didn’t belong to the Silver Boy. This darkness was older, strong but tired, and fighting, always fighting, refusing to fade and lingering still. There was also something that wasn’t supposed to be in this darkness, a corruptive similar in nature to the darklings, something this Lingering Darkness never wanted.<br/>
</p><p>Its presence made the Heartless quietly hiss in contemplation. It should purge this not-quite-foreign Darkness, make it no more. The Corruptive within it was a danger, could harm both Heart of Dawn and the Silver Boy. Perhaps it had even done so already.<br/>
</p><p>Yet, even still, as the Anti-Form once more brushed its fingers smooth over the worn surface of this most Precious Heart, it felt its hunger gradually die away.<br/>
</p><p>Lingering Darkness had come to Heart of Dawn for help. It sought refuge and strength here, because the Silver Boy’s inner light was so much stronger than this pitiful and arrogant Corruptive. It had tried to poison their darknesses so as to devour them. Instead, they together were destroying it.<br/>
</p><p>Even now, the Heartless could sense the Corruptive dissolving, the light consuming it, and soon it will be no more. Lingering Darkness will be able to finally rest, to sleep and heal, within Heart of Dawn’s own strong and protecting darkness. Just as darknesses should be.<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Sora cooed a soft, satisfied sound. This Heart was healthy and strong. The Silver Boy cared for it well, with both a deep protective darkness, and a purifying and powerful light. There was no need to take this Heart away from him, to do so would be unforgivably wrong, even if it had meant for it to only be for a short while.<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Form reverently stroked the fragile Heart one last time. It chirped and warbled and cooed, wiggling haplessly in place from brimming affection. Eager, it proudly displayed the pretty sphere of light for the Silver Boy to see.<br/>
</p><p>And it was more difficult than it should’ve been, for Riku to focus for his friend. His thoughts were drifting, and his sense of reasoning wasn’t working quite right anymore.<br/>
</p><p><em>‘Sora looks like a little kid.</em>’<br/>
</p><p>It was true. When they were younger Sora would find some spectacular trinket, a shell or rock from the beach, and become completely enamored with it. Of course he then had to excitably show it off to all his cool friends.<br/>
</p><p>Just as he was now.<br/>
</p><p>Sora was starting to nudge at him though. He probably needed to say something out loud.<br/>
</p><p>“It’s… really pretty, Sora.” He finally murmured. 
</p><p><em>‘It’s brighter than I thought it’d be.</em>’<br/>
</p><p>Wait, he had that thought already.<br/>
</p><p>…Didn’t he?<br/>
</p><p>The Anti-Form, concerned at the Silver Boy’s odd aloofness, hesitantly cooed. It held Heart of Dawn closer to the child, reaching out to prod again. Bring the boy back to his senses. This place wasn’t safe. He needed to wake up.<br/>
</p><p>But something was wrong. Riku couldn’t stay awake anymore, and his vision went splotchy. The last thing he saw, he couldn’t remember. He blacked out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The End!!!</p><p>Now here’s a bit of fun insight to what prompted this fic, for those of you who want to know, and those who might be wishing for a little more clarity on the abstract concepts. </p><p>It all began when I asked myself; what is a Heartless, and why is it that they exist? Then I did some research, and these are the few facts that stood out. </p><p>When collecting Ansem’s notes in the first game, I noticed that in one it stated that the ones without a sigil were ‘natural’ and the ones with were ‘lab created.’ Now to me, that implies that Heartless once existed as a natural element of the worlds at large. But this influence must’ve been subtle, as while exploring said worlds, very few locals seemed to know what they were, having never even seen them before. So it was only recently that Heartless had become a problem, and this is likely because of the outside tampering of Ansem the Wise, and then furthered by Apprentice Xehanort.</p><p>So if It was the experiments that made the Heartless corrupted, then what was their original design as nature intended, and not as Ansem, Xeanort, Malefecent, and all the other villains turned them into? I somehow doubt they were originally meant to be mindless Heart collectors that just up and murdered everything on sight. Seriously, what’s up with that, really?</p><p>That was when I remembered; the timeline, as I know it, is this; When the Keyblade War reached its peak, the X-Blade that protected Kingdom Hearts was destroyed, and thus the Kingdom Hearts vanished into the Realm of Darkness to protect itself. That was also when Darkness engulfed the land, dividing the worlds into what they are now. </p><p>That means the overwhelming Darkness was spawned as a defensive countermeasure, and that it’s original existence was actually protective in nature. It explains both Riku and Terra’s susceptibility to darkness, and how Riku was able to master it as a Keyblade Wielder. More importantly, it explains why Sora doesn’t suffer any mental or emotional recoil from being a heartless. The darkness that makes up his form is simply there to protect his heart.</p><p>That’s the inherent purpose of the Heartless, to collect Hearts and return them to Kingdom Hearts for SAFTEY reasons. It’s like when a soul goes to heaven after they die, Hearts go to Kingdom Hearts, and Heartless were only meant to HELP with that journey. </p><p>Aaaaand voila!! The basis that this fic thrives from is that ‘Heartless Protect Hearts.’ It’s not a perfect thesis, I know. And as such, I’ve taken creative liberties as is my right as a fanfiction writer. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the story, as I put a lot of effort into it for that specific purpose. </p><p>Up next; I’ll be exploring the nature of Nobodies. What does it mean to not have a Heart anyway? Existing on strength of will alone. What does it mean when they say they ‘don’t feel anything?’</p></blockquote></div></div>
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